There comes a time in every orienteer's life when he is
asked to do an orienteering workshop.
Most orienteers just shake their heads regretfully (but with
considerable relief) and say, "Sorry, but I don't know how." Well, you got out of that one! Saved!
But, ask yourself -- how many future orienteers did you deny the
pleasure of learning the sport? And what
if it's your son's Scout troop asking? Or your daughter's third-grade class? Or the ranger at the park where your club
likes to hold a meet twice a year? Gee,
that does wonders for your club's public relations, doesn't it? And forget giving out the phone number of Joe
or Mary, who do it all the time. It's
not really fair to them to send them your requesting groups. They've got more than enough of their own.
The fact is, every semi-experienced orienteer should be
ready, willing and able to do a simple orienteering workshop without much
trouble to either himself or the group requesting the
workshop. It just takes a little
preparation the first time. After that,
you just do the same thing again. And again. Routine. No
problem. Nice benefits, good feelings
all around.
First, naturally, you need a map. If one of the club's maps is nearby or if the
request is from a park ranger whose land is already mapped, you're doing
great. If not, you don't want to be
travelling back and forth forever to do these things. Take a couple of days to make a simple map of
a small park near you. Remember, this
doesn't need to be any bigger than a good-sized picnic park and the map doesn't
have to be a 5-color IOF-standard masterpiece.
Make it a big scale, like 1:5000 or 1:6000 and put the names of the
streets and buildings on it. Make it as
user-friendly for the average 10-year-old as you can and all those beginners will think you're the greatest mapmaker in
town. If you want color instead of black
and white, pick which colors carefully.
You won't need Green. To a
beginner, all woods look like fight so they won't be able to read those
vegetation changes anyway. If you have a
lake or stream, Blue is the first color to choose. Nobody ever assumes Blue is anything but
water. Yellow's good, but a Brown screen
works just as well for clearings. If
there are only two or three contour intervals in the whole park, why not just
skip the Brown and go with Yellow? It
doesn't have to be "correct," it only has to be readable.
Next, the courses. The easiest way to go about course setting is
to design the course once and keep using that same course over and over. You should only need to change about once a
year, as most groups will consider you an annual event. I recommend having two courses designed, "Short
and Easy" and "Long and Tricky."
S/E is a 1km White course, all trails and mowed-grass areas. It's for the elementary school groups and the
ladies' garden club. L/T is a 2km Yellow
course for the Scouts, teen groups and the outing clubs. These sound way too easy, but believe me, most of your participants will be out 30-45 minutes
every time. If you can afford it, it's
also a good idea to have your own private stash of controls so you don't have
to be borrowing the club's supplies all the time.
If you don't know how to do a beginner instruction class,
great! All you have to do is read over
the legend with the beginners, pointing out samples on the map of everything on
the legend and then show them how to orient the map. That's it!
Time everybody out, in teams of 2 or 3, in the usual way, and post the
results as they come it. Hand out your club schedule, promise to be at
the next club event so they will have a known face to find, and pick up your
controls and go home! Voila!
The average adult orienteer should be able to handle a group
of 15-20 alone. If you get a larger
group, you need a friend to help. Charge $1 or so a map to recover your costs of maps and supplies. If you keep track, you'll find that doing
several workshops a year is a breakeven deal and may even pay for the next
printing of the map. If you start making
a lot of money, you can help your club's map budget enormously.
As for those park workshops, it's absolutely amazing how
much more consideration and cooperation the local club gets when the members do
an occasional workshop for the park ranger's schedule of events. And that's the kind of PR that's priceless
when so many clubs are having park use problems.
Personal benefits? One group voted my orienteering workshop
"Best Field Trip of the Year."
A couple of weeks after doing a workshop for a fifth-grade class, I got
a huge envelope in the mail of nifty crayon-drawn contour maps the kids had
done. Another time I was presented with
a t-shirt. Nothing big
or fancy? No, but very
personal. And sometimes that's worth
more.
9/2007